Record orders received in the first half-year for KUKA despite difficult economic situation

• Strong demand for automation worldwide: orders received reach highest level in KUKA’s history in first half-year, orders in China nearly doubled.
• Double-digit growth also achieved in sales revenues.
• Increased costs are impacting earnings, but KUKA nevertheless improves EBIT by 43.8%.
• CEO Peter Mohnen: “KUKA is winning over more and more customers in more and more industries in the competitive automation market. But supply bottlenecks are making it much more difficult for us to deliver products to our customers.”

KUKA has achieved strong results in the first six months of 2022. At €2,545.4 million, the value of KUKA Group’s orders received in the first half of the year was 34.8% higher than in the previous year, and sales revenues increased by 13.5% to around €1.7 billion. In addition, KUKA improved earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) to €48.6 million (H1/21: €33.8 million). The EBIT margin increased to 2.8% in the first half-year 2022.

“In the first half of 2022, we are reporting the highest ever level of orders received in a half-year period. At over €2.5 billion after only six months, this is only just below that figure for the full year 2020,” says Peter Mohnen, CEO of KUKA AG. All divisions contributed to this strong performance. In the first half-year 2022, for example, KUKA almost doubled the volume of orders received in China.

“KUKA is winning over more and more customers in more and more industries worldwide in the competitive automation market. Experience from the pandemic has also shown that our products and solutions centered on robotics, automation and software solutions have become indispensable for modern production operations. ”

Peter Mohnen, CEO of KUKA AG

Global challenges

Despite the high demand, KUKA too is impacted by the difficult underlying economic conditions such as the semiconductor shortage and the effects of Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine with material bottlenecks, faltering supply chains and rising costs.

“The challenge at present is primarily to generate revenues and thus profits from the orders. Our teams are working hard to ensure that we can manufacture and deliver our products under significantly more difficult conditions. Global uncertainties and risks will remain with us for some time to come. But KUKA has the right strategy with new products and solutions for fast-growing markets,” says Peter Mohnen. “The economy is facing enormous global challenges. Automation solutions help companies around the world to respond to these issues.” 

Energy-efficient robots or smart simulation software, for example, can help optimize production and conserve resources; and digitally connected manufacturing processes can make data such as energy consumption measurable and help reduce costs.